What is the ADAS?
The American Drug and Alcohol Survey (ADAS) is an anonymous paper & pencil survey. It may be given to 4th through 12th grade students. The survey provides critical information to help school districts and communities understand the nature and extent of local substance use. The results of the survey can help you assess community needs, evaluate prevention programs, identify trends in substance use over time, and provide the data required to write grant proposals and inspire others to get involved in substance use prevention. The survey results are anonymous and never give information about any individual’s drug use.
The ADAS is available exclusively through Rocky Mountain Behavioral Science Institute, Inc. The ADAS is used in hundreds of communities each year. RMBSI has a proven and reliable track record of helping school districts, youth agencies, and community coalitions – we’ve been doing this since 1987!
The survey is very easy to administer in the classroom. It is a paper-pencil questionnaire that asks about the students’ experience with a variety of drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. It also asks questions about student attitudes about substance use, including their perception of the harmfulness of drugs, their intention to use in the future, how easy it would be to obtain drugs, peer influences to use drugs, and whether they would try to stop their friends from using or have friends who would try to stop them. Questions are also asked about age of first use, parental disapproval of youth drug use, where they use (if they use), and what kinds of problems they may have had related to drug use. Procedures are used that carefully protect students’ anonymity.
Two versions of the ADAS are available. The “Adolescent” version is intended for students from 6th to 12th grade, while the “Children’s” version was designed for elementary school students in 4th to 6th grades. The Adolescent version has a 6th grade reading level, and the Children’s version has a 4th grade reading level.
The ADAS is completed in a single class room period, with most students finishing the questionnaire in about 20 to 30 minutes. The surveys are then returned to R.M.B.S.I. where they are scanned in to our computer and analyzed. We prepare reports on the results for the group of students. No individual results are ever provided. Reports are returned to the client approximately 30 days after we receive the completed surveys.
The report based on the Adolescent ADAS includes 22 to 25 tables and is approximately 50 pages long. The Children’s ADAS report includes 25 tables and is approximately 32 pages long. With each of these reports we provide a presentation script with colorful bar graphs and pie charts on overhead transparency film, so that you can easily give presentations of the survey results.
© 2003 Rocky Mountain Behavioral Science Institute.